


Tiamat and Abzu

by Miggy



Category: Indiana Jones Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miggy/pseuds/Miggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indiana Jones isn't made for paperwork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiamat and Abzu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts).



The day that breaks Indiana Jones' resolve brings three tenure reviews and two grant applications to his desk. 

"I can't do this, Marion," he says, stalking a short line across his study. The room isn't small; none of the rooms in his grand old house are. But the place is filled with the remnants of a life he thought he'd left behind: Mesopotamian etchings, notes on the settlement patterns of the Indus Valley, photographs of Oregon petroglyphs. Physical artifacts have been donated to museums by now, and so he's left with a lifetime's worth of notes and records. There were far more than he thought. Along one wall, the boxes are stacked two deep.

Marion props her chin on her hand. "I didn't know Indiana Jones knew how to say 'can't.'"

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation, here," he sighs.

Wordlessly she stands, walks to the sideboard, and pours him a drink. They consider their scotch neats before swigging them. She, of course, drinks hers down easier than he does. "What can't you do?" Marion asks.

Indiana leans against a desk and looks at some scribblings that no museums wanted. Can't they see all the knowledge waiting to be discovered out there in the world? It's _there_ for them, yet they only wanted the artifacts that they could display with labels, or notes that matched someone else's filing system. He's made a lifetime's living from putting together fragments of thought into a coherent whole; will his fragments have to wait a few centuries before anyone takes them seriously?

"Indy?" Marion asks softly.

He turns, picks up some random piece of paper, and hands it to her. "I can't sit behind a desk forever. There are too many questions out there. I don't want to spend the rest of my life arranging other people's answers into curriculum plans."

She doesn't reply immediately. He knew she wouldn't. There are concerns she never voices: he's not as young as he used to be, the threats he researches give no consideration to age. If he were a proper academic, he would age gracefully and hand the reins over to the younger generation. He's earned his spot behind the desk in the big office; let someone with a stronger, straighter back avoid booby traps and dodge attacks and get covered in exotic insects.

"What I think," Marion begins, and Indiana prepares himself for a lecture, "is that no one but an idiot would ask Indiana Jones to stay at their university and never expect him to get out and see the world."

He stands straighter, surprised. "But you—" _You want me to stay home. You don't want me taking stupid risks. We've been married less than a year. Right?_

She hears all that, somehow, or at least is excellent at faking knowledge of how he thinks. With a smirk, Marion continues, "And only an idiot would marry Indiana Jones and expect him to do nothing with all of these notes for things that are still out there, somewhere." As wonder fills him, she looks down at the paper in her hands and reads it thoughtfully. "The Fuente Magna. Discovered in Bolivia two months ago." Marion looks up. "A bowl?" she asks, but without judgment. She's experienced the wondrous danger of 'a box,' and heard about his adventures with other simple nouns like 'a cup.' 

"This just came across my desk last week," Indiana says, feeling his excitement build. "No one is taking it seriously, but I saw the pictures, Marion. There's something strange about this artifact and I don't buy reports of it being faked." He leans forward and taps the sheet of paper. "It's covered in proto-Sumerian."

"A bowl covered in proto-Sumerian writing was found in _Bolivia?_ " Marion repeats with disbelief. "Indy...."

"I know, I know: it screams hoax." He grins and starts digging through his files to find that other report that went mostly unnoticed by the academic community. "But here," he says with triumph and hands her several mimeographed sheets. "Read this."

She does and her eyebrows raise; with surprise or suspicion, he can't tell. "There were rumors of nearby farmers being able to irrigate straight from the ocean." Looking up, she waits to be convinced.

He can see the pieces falling together: thousands of years of history, overlaid and angled and twisted until it forms an enormous blueprint that's finally able to be read. "There are theories about ancient Sumerian seafarers. And in their mythology, the Abzu was an underground freshwater sea. Sometimes the Abzu was personified as a deity in his own right. Other times it was was home to the god Enki, who...." Breaking off, he hunts through his books. "Later Babylonian mythology, heavily influenced by the Sumerian mythos, stated that Abzu became the lover of Tiamat, who lived in the saltwater ocean. And their waters _mixed._ "

With that slow, lopsided smile that used to aggravate him and he now adores, Marion asks, "So are we flying to Bolivia or Iraq first?"

"I love you," Indiana says with wonder.

She kisses him. "And I love you. Bring your shaving kit. I've gotten used to not getting my chin scratched."

A young man might be able to take on the world alone, Indiana thinks as he packs his bag, but the strength of an older man is that he doesn't have to. His assistant assures him that the department will have no problem with his absence; the undercurrent is that they're confused that he hasn't already flitted off on one of these little jaunts. About to hang up, Indiana remembers, "Someone else can handle those tenure and grant applications, right, Gert?" He ends the call before her uncertain reply turns into true protest.

"This is ridiculous," Marion points out as they put their suitcases in the trunk of his car. 

"You're absolutely right," Indiana says. Then he gets behind the steering wheel, because both of them know full well that something being ridiculous is no reason that it shouldn't be done. Marion's father researched the ridiculous that couldn't possibly exist, Indiana's made his name off it, and she's lived with both and grabbed on with both hands. 

As he's about to pull out, someone knocks on his window.

Both of them gasp, then turn to see their son (their _son_ ) tapping on the window a bit harder than is strictly necessary. "I stopped by your office to get you to sign this," Mutt says and slaps a form against the glass.

"I'm done with paperwork for the week," Indiana says, then hesitates. "You're not failing something, are you?"

He's gotten Mutt to continue his schooling in a muddy mixture of home studies and early university, but only in the subjects he most cares about. The boy's brilliant but absolutely resistant to taking a single class that he doesn't want. Even without Indiana's input, some faculty have considered letting That Williams Boy design his own approach to the major, so long as it's sufficiently rigorous. In the meantime, his father's signature has let him skip past an awful lot of prerequisites.

Fortunately it's that topic, not a failing grade. "They don't want a freshman taking Pre-Columbian Religions," Mutt grumbles. "Personally, I think sneaking through an actual Peruvian temple should give me some points, right?"

"You don't even count as a freshman," Marion points out. "Remember how you promised me you would get that diploma, first?"

"I tested better than anyone there, though," Mutt says with a cheeky grin.

"There's a girl who beat you," Indiana says and revels in Mutt's face falling. "And she's never even been out of the state. Well, if you talked to Gert, then you know that we need to go. We've got a plane to catch."

"Oh, you shouldn't have said that," Marion sighs.

The interest is clear on Mutt's face. "What's up?"

"Nothing's up." Indiana puts his car into gear. "You have six more weeks of classes to attend. And papers to write." 

"I already did 'em," Mutt says. At their surprise, he says, "What? Jimmy bet me I couldn't write an A paper when we hadn't even covered half the readings yet. The prof got back to me, and I got Jimmy to wash my bike every month for a year."

Marion sighs, but she's used to her son's ego by now.

"If you want to go," Indiana says, checking his watch, "then tell me why it matters that they found a bowl with Proto-Sumerian engravings in Bolivia, right before the ocean turned to freshwater." At Mutt's blank expression, Indiana nods meaningfully. "Focus on your studies, kid. And take that damn English comp course. Some day you'll need to write up what you've found. I don't care if you only want to take archaeology and sports."

"I can't figure out how to answer," Mutt admits, "because I don't know if you want me calling her Nammu or Tiamat."

Indiana and Marion exchange a look.

"Religions of the Ancient World," Mutt explains with a smirk when he sees he's landed right. "The prof teaches really slow, so I do some readings on the side to keep from falling asleep. He already kicked me out for one nap."

"Come on," Indiana says with a sigh, and gestures to the door behind him. "We'll swing by your place and pick up your passport."

"Iraq?" Mutt asks, flinging himself into the car.

"That'll be stop two," Marion says. "We're starting with Bolivia."

Mutt slaps the back of Indiana's seat and grins. "Goose it."

 _Not only does this older man not have to take on the world alone,_ Indiana thinks wryly as they pull onto the street, _but I might be able to load up a stronger back, too._ He considers that as Mutt argues for his radio station of choice. "Hey kid," he begins, recalling the adventures of his younger days. "How would you feel about getting covered in bugs?"

Mutt frowns. "What, like those ants?"

"Nah. Just your typical beetles and cockroaches."

Their son hesitates, then shrugs. "I could handle it."

Indiana smirks and Marion shakes her head. In the distance he can see a plane landing; the airport is straight ahead. "Welcome aboard."

**Author's Note:**

> My requestee asked for: "I have written a few Indy stories and am a big devotee of the franchise so I'm pretty sure that Dr. Jones didn't totally give up and spend the rest of his days in a classroom but I'm just as sure that he'd never leave Marion behind now that they're finally together again so tell me a tale of old lovers and their son and something exciting that they find that might change the world!"
> 
> I hope this was what you wanted! Have a wonderful Yuletide!


End file.
